Genetically Engineered Food

📖 The Scoop

"Picture a world where the french fries you eat are registered as a pesticide. Where corn plants kill monarch butterflies. Where soy plants thrive on doses of herbicide that would kill a normal plant. Where multinational corporations own the seeds that farmers grow and legally control the farmers' actions. That world exists. These events are happening now, and they are happening to us all. Genetically engineered foods -- from plants whose genetic structures are altered by scientists in ways that could never occur in nature -- are already present in most of the products you buy in supermarkets. They are unlabeled, unwanted, and largely untested. In this updated and expanded edition of Genetically Engineered Food: Changing the Nature of Nature, authors Martin Teitel and Kimberly Wilson explain what genetic engineering is and how it works, then explore the health risks involved with eating these newly created foods. They address the ecological hazards that could result from modified plants crossing with wild species and escaping human control altogether, as well as the economic ruin that may befall small farmers who find themselves. At the mercy of huge corporations for their livelihood. Addressing the "feed the poor" propaganda spread by the agribusiness industry, they describe how the genetic engineering "revolution" actually threatens to displace farmers in the Third World and intensify the problem of world hunger. Finally, the authors consider the ethical and spiritual implications of this radical change in our relationship to the natural world, and show what the future holds if we don't act now to implement a moratorium on the production of genetically engineered food." -- Book jacket.

Genre: Fiction / General (fancy, right?)